Happy New Year 2010!

The crew of "Life’s2Short" would like to wish each of our faithful readers a happy and healthy 2010. Since our last post we spent the Christmas holiday in Boulder, Colorado visiting the Captain's family and friends and New Year's Eve back in St Petersburg, Florida enjoying good times with great friends! We also took a side trip to Steve & Lisa’s home north of Tampa to witness the Alabama Tide roll over Texas (kind of) in the BCS Bowl. In between these good times we have had other family visit "Life’s2Short" and we even tried to get some boat maintenance done on the ol’ gal.

The night after we arrived in Colorado we had ten inches of new snow, needless to say we had a beautiful White Christmas. The Captain actually got a chance to go out and shovel some of that global warming, something he has not had to do for over four years!

Christmas day found the entire Lanning clan together, all fourteen of us! This was the first time since May of 2006 that we had all been together and we all had a great time playing in the snow and opening presents!

Another interesting thing we did since we were all together is that all the Lanning kids and grandkids came up with two or three questions that they wanted to ask Mamaw & Papaw. We then videotaped each person asking the questions and will copy the video to CD's for everyone. There were some very thought provoking and funny questions!

Katie interviews Mamaw about her favorite recipes and where they came from.

The entire Lanning clan on Christmas Day.

The Sunday after Christmas Brenda & I were invited over to my “old” college roommates house in Denver for a little dinner and a much needed back adjustment from Zach the Chiropractor. We were also joined by Arne Elisha, another “old” college buddy, and his sister Freda. A great time was had by all and we appreciate Zach, Krista and Skylar’s hospitality!

New Years Eve found us back in Florida. We spent the night of the 3oth over at our good friends Steve & Lisa’s house acting very, very silly playing the board game “Quelf”. The next day all four of us headed to Cathy’s house in St Pete to continue the New Year's Eve celebrations with more games and more company. I think I made it back aboard "Life’s2Short" about 3 a.m. and the Admiral made it back on board sometime after 6 a.m.!

Photo album from “Quelf”, do not try this without proper supervision!

More New Years Eve photos, some day we all hope to grow up… NOT!

Pretty much sums up the past two evenings!

Well if you aren’t worn out after looking at all those photos we will continue on into 2010.

On Sunday the 3rd my cousin Norman drove over from Tampa to see us. The last time we saw Norman was in Boulder during the Christmas of 200o and much has changed in his life since then. Norman now has a new addition to his family of girls, a three-year-old daughter named Sara! Norman also brought his oldest daughter Beth Anne (Liz); however, his wife Marion was not feeling well so she stayed back in Tampa. Since the weather was so crappy we only spent an hour catching up and having a quick bite at Taco Bell. We hope to get back over to see Norman in Tampa during our stay here at Cathy’s. Regardless, it was great to see him again and spend time with him and the girls!

The first part of the following week was spent in “The Holy Place” changing out the engine and genset oil and antifreeze and also replacing the transmission fluid in both trannys. While down there the Captain also found a torn fan belt and replaced it. Seems every time the Captain enters his “Holy Place” there is always something to fix, replace, or tighten…such is the life of a Captain!

With Alabama playing Texas in the BCS Bowl on January 7th, we were once again invited to Steve & Lisa’s, who are HUGE Alabama fans, to watch the game. Cathy was gracious enough to let us borrow her car for the night so off we went to north Tampa. A great time was had by all, again, and thankfully Alabama won the game.

It is now Saturday, January 9th, and the crew of "Life’s2Short" is drying out, a much needed event based on this past week…I think I got a buzz again just writing this blog update! The weather in Florida has been windy, cold, drizzly and crappy for the past week. Today the high is only 37 and we were told that there was sleet on the Tampa Bay bridge this morning. I know most of you up north are freezing your buns off so you don’t feel sorry for us, but when all you have are shorts and t-shirts it gets a might nippy in this weather!